


Work in Progress

by SoHoldMeTight



Category: Original - Fandom
Genre: Language, Original Works - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 14:38:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10721316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoHoldMeTight/pseuds/SoHoldMeTight
Summary: "Tonight I remain a lone photographer. And tonight she remains lonely. The saddest girl downtown."





	Work in Progress

**Author's Note:**

> Unedited draft that if you happen to fall upon congrats. Enjoy regardless!

  
"I don't want to be your fucking saddest girl downtown! I don't want to be your girl of the week!" She scrubbed tears from her cheek. "Why do you care about us being sad?"

She clenched her fists, her voice was red and scratchy. "God why do you _care?!_ Why don't you take a picture of me smiling or laughing? Why does it always have to be sad?!"

"Because you never do," he whispered.

Her lips twisted into something he could not call a thorn, " _What?_ "

Brown eyes met the floor, "You never smile. You never laugh. You never do anything but look sad."

"So you can just give me a title and post pictures of me?!" Her arms were thrown out continuously, she moved like a storm.

The photo laid on the coffee table.

She threw a paper beneath her thumb, the girl wrapped in grays. "God what _am I to you?_ Some fucking _headline?!_ A fucking joke!"

"No!"

The cozy apartment was too small. The photo too large. Her anger and his fear clashed like snakes.

Her shoes clacked against the hard floors. His socks seemed too casual, too slippery and unsure. The atoms of him fell beneath her like spilt beads.

Everywhere and all at once.

She spun to face him, "A raise waiting to happen?!"

"No!" He turned away.

_'Coward.'_

She would leave. Her soft hair under his fingers would leave. She was not soft today.

You're not-" he grabbed his short hair. "I didn't mean to- You're not a- some-"

"What?" She hissed. "What exactly am I not to you that every other girl was?"

" _I found you,_ okay?!" He screamed. "I'm sorry, but I found you!"

"... _what?_ "

He sighed, shaking his head, "Never mind. I'm sorry I shouldn't- I don't know."

His answer was the blare of car horns and engines. The apartment's frosted window used to make him feel small, a small guy in a big city. Now it was a backdrop to his life.

The gray sky and red brown leaves framed the life he had made. He noticed the old window now, and feared she would climb out of it. Everything outside was background noise, clutter, out of focus.

If she left everything would fall back into gray routines and deadlines. The window would haunt him with his unimportance. Standing here, with her, she made him feel important.

She made him feel... essential.

And _she_ was certainly so. She used to be his distraction from life. Now life was a distraction from her. She'd taken the big city that sucked them up and made it a background.

Everything was secondary to her, even New York.

He smelled her now burnt coffee and breathed in deep.

"I...found you." His faded white sock circled the wooden floor.

She raised an eyebrow, leaning against the island.

"When I...um-" he sighed in relief with the next words, finding a starting place.

"When I first moved here I was alone."

"Aren't we all?"

"Yes but I- I was in a bad place. A really shitty place. I didn't know what to write and my bills were too big for a paycheck too little."

She held back a scoff of unity. Her words were often received like a knife to the back, regardless of intent. He ran his hands down the sides of his gray sweater.

She bit her lip, holding a corrective comment. His eyes flickered to her once more. The dark irises often held mirrors, bringing out others fears. They were never magnifying glasses upon his own story.

But today she was able to see something within him, hints, as she often did. Today it seemed they had lined to make a map.

"I was just taking some event photos, I had to pick up a side on once in a while. I was taking the subway from an event and I..." his eyelids jumped to meet at the stinging memory.

"I saw this girl. I'd seen her a few times on the subway but she... she looked different then. Like she walked with purpose, she breathed of men's wants and late nights, but she breathed deep and long."

His hands were shaking, "She was _living_. But that day... She had these dark, sunken eyes and this thin, shiny green shawl around her shoulders. She was just..." he looked to her, "sitting there. Her hair was dark and matted and she just looked so _tired_."

His breath was husky as he whispered.

"She looked so _tired_ , Dani."

"So I... god." He sniffed, "I thought about the bills I had and th-that _shitty window_."

He glared at the dusty thing with a twist of spite and sorrow. Watching him, she felt her chest twist as well. His arms shook as he ran them down his shirt.

"That window I could never see the whole picture in, and the boring job going nowhere, and the parties I worked that I could never afford where people poured drinks over dresses without a care in the world. I started thinking how I could never see all of New York through that window, I could barely see smudges of the dirty sidewalks. But _this girl_ , this sad looking, worn out girl wouldn't see anything. Ever."

"So I took a photo. She wasn't looking at me, she wasn't looking at anything and I- I was stupid, I just wanted to remind myself that people were _hurting_ in this world. And it wasn't my job to complain about bills, other people were being crushed by the very things that made them, their dreams."

He kept looking up, as if searching for answers in the cracks of the ceiling. He would find none there. She bit her lip, leaning against a table in the kitchen. His socks curled into the doormat, he stood breathing in front of the door.

"What did you do with the photo?"

"Wha-"

"The photo," she repeated. "The photo you took of the girl, what did you do with it?"

His eyes fell to the floor, his stature pulling towards it as well, "I should have deleted it. Burnt it. I didn't like that I had a picture of this girl and she had no idea. But I couldn't bring myself to delete it. I wanted to see her again. I wanted to talk to her. But I... well- I was at work when I was flipping through my camera. I didn't have anything to do at the time when my boss came in and saw her picture."

He ran his hands down his shirt, irritated with the extra fabric. "He uh- he loved it. Said she had 'sorrow sewn into her', he told me to keep working on it."

He smiled softly, "He'd never encouraged a new project. I didn't know what to do with that..." he sighed, "I just wanted to talk to her, that was all."

"It took a week for me to work up the nerve." He chuckled, "I think I might have spooked her if I wasn't such an obvious geek with a camera."

"She was beautiful, but sad. But she smiled when I sat next to her. I don't think anyone had done that in a while. I didn't know how to ask her why she looked so empty, scraped of everything and left to dry."

"So I didn't ask her. And she died."

She put a hand to her chest, walking over to him. He tried to smile at her but it was wobbly and wet. The warm oak of his eyes was met by pale, blue lining.

He wiped his eyes, laughing something thick and horrible, "This is so stupid."

She touched his cheek, "It's not stupid."

"But she _died!_ " His face fell into his hands and his shoulders shook.

The hand in his throat tightened around his shaking voice. His shirt was too loose and too baggy and he _hated it._ He hated that he invested in cheap shit. God he made the stupidest choices and _his voice wouldn't work._

"I sat with- with- with her for _months!_ But she d-d- _died_ and _I could have helped her! I knew something was wrong_ ," he pulled at his stupid shirt, "and _I didn't- do- anything!"_

Tears poured down his face, and she thought her would tear right down the middle if they didn't stop. She placed her warm hands over his, squeezing his fingers. He reached to fix his sweater.

"Hey, _hey,"_ she said softly. "Come on... look at me."

"But I can't- I don't- its too- I can't fix it," he cried. "I can't fix it I can't fix it I _can't fix it, Dani!_ I knew something was wrong- but I didn't- want to ask and I knew something was wrong! I just kept that fucking picture," he sobbed, "and it got me a new job and she _died!_ "

He cried for a long time after that. He leaned against her until she guided him to the gray couch. Gray couch, gray sweater, gray carpet, everything was between black and white; life and death.

She held him like he'd held his favorite baby blanket. His grandmother had made it for him. He recalled the fabric as she ran a hand through his black hair.

It had been soft, made of warm, creamy white stitches and curls and hours spent crocheting. She passed like a white bird in the black of night, quietly and swiftly. Without a sound she was gone.

He had kept the blanket close to him as a child. He'd worn it with a love now wrapped in fear. The blanket was all he had of her now. It rested above his heart with a gentle hand.

He felt this way now as Dani held him, close to her heart with a gentle hand. Her fingers threaded through his curls, the pale stone of her ring standing out. His eyes rested on the blue stone moving through his curls: up, over, and back again.

"I'm sorry," he croaked.

She continued to play with his hair.

"That shouldn't have happened."

"You don't have to apologize for being upset," she whispered.

He turned his head, dark eyes resting on her face. The curve of her chin, the forests in her eyes, her plump lips. He thought of her old smile, it was beautiful. 

All teeth and happiness. He remembered her feeding the geese pieces of fluffy bread. She loved to walk around the edge of the fountain without shoes. 

"I've never cheated on you."

"Well that's a relief," she said with a smirk.

He laughed. The laugh was crackly like an old radio. But if you listened closely, there was meaning to be found.

"I met her a few years ago. We started to become friends. I saw her on Tuesdays and the weekends. She could seem off, like I said. Her laugh was loud... she was intimidating."

"But while I was up and coming, she was always coming down. I thought she was too thin. But I didn't want to ask. I just took a photo of her, I didn't intend to make a friend of any sorts. Even the odd circumstances of my ignorance on a train of strangers."

He was quiet for a moment, and she thought he had finished when he whispered a soft blow: glass before it shatters.

"She was an addict," he said with a shaky voice, like a frightened child under the covers. "She was destined for death. And this whole- the whole time she'd intended to profit from me as well."

He chuckled softly at the irony, "I'd worried I was using her, for what I didn't know. She was a prostitute. She had to prostitute herself to survive. I didn't realize it at the time, didn't _want_ to realize it."

"I only knew her a few months, I was young and new to the city and blinded by ambition." He scoffed, "at least, that's what I told myself. She was stabbed in an alley."

"The only photo of her to ever be in the newspaper was her obituary. All of that worry? All of the time she spent trying to look happy? It was _pointless_. I couldn't do that anymore. Sit and wait for people to get better. I wanted people to know. I kept my camera with me, every day. I wanted to get a picture of anyone who was suffering. At first I felt like I was doing something right. I took a photo of a boy who we found was being abused. I stared at photos of sad people until they filled my wall. I rarely learned anyone's name. Usually they disappeared. A photo to fill my camera and disappear."

"But I started printing them," he said with a sigh. "I was an insignificant article on the third page. Still, I had a new piece to write."

He looked at her, his lips lifting at the side. "Then I was at the park, and you were sitting over the fountain. You looked like you were happy. You were smiling and laughing about nothing."

"I hadn't been infected by someone's happiness in a long time," he said with a smile. "I walked the city for photos, and any time I passed the fountain you were there. Smiling."

"So you don't like me because I'm a sad girl, you like me because I used to be happy?"

"Not at all."

"Then why am I photo 'The Girl Wrapped in Grays'?" She said in a mocking voice, "Why would you take that picture?"

"After I worked up the nerve to talk to you, you waved to me. You even smiled. We became friends. I took a picture of you in front of the fountain when you were wrapped all in gray. Gray jacket, gray skirt-"

"I remember the outfit. It's in my closet, you know."

"I didn't know about the funeral, and I'm sorry that I took a photo. I was just scared."

She frowned, looking at down at his head in her lap, "Scared? Of what?"

He smoothed his shirt, eyes flicking from her to the floor. "That something would happen to you. That something had happened to you. You were staring into the fountain like you wanted to swim in it. Like you were to content to see the world from under the water until you couldn't see anymore. I was scared I wouldn't pull you back, and I was scared what would happen if I did."

And he had been, he was propelled by fear and held back by the very thing that moved him. It was another time. He was not yet accustomed to her sorrow. Not then, not yet- sometimes not even now.

But her sorrow blurred into scorn. The days seemed lighter. A closer look would reveal her facade. She was like a candle turned inside out; brightest on the outside and colder, darker, within.

"One thing I never did for her? The girl with the green shawl? I never showed her the picture I took. I never showed her how strongly she captured on camera, how obviously sad she was. So I took your picture, and I prayed you would be there tomorrow. I know you have...a lot going on, and I knew you wouldn't be comfortable with it. So I... I didn't tell you."

"That worked out well."

"I've had better reactions," he said with a shrug. "But I didn't know- I swear I didn't know about the... the broken photos."

"I know," she said softly. "I know."

"Good," he whispered with relief. "What...what can I do to help?"

"Oh I'm still mad," she said with a shake of her head, the ceiling's lights moving around her hair. "You just sit here with me. Neither of us are perfect, but we're sure as hell not close. Not right now."

"I know."

"What I don't know is why I called you in the first place. You're right, you were dorky."

"I know that too," he said with a laugh.

They sat together, she against the couch and his head against her jeans. The cars outside had blurred together, only background noise in the place they had made. Her photo lay on the floor. Her empty eyes stared back at him.

"I don't like you because you've been sad, or because you've been happy."

She rolled her eyes, "I guess that does _beg the question_ , why then?"

He smiled up at her, soft fingers in his hair and the light's halo above her head.

"I love you because you don't let anything stop you, not even me."


End file.
